50-year-old message in a jar resurfaces

Aug. 16, 2013
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Arthur Fierro, president of property owners association of Seaside Heights, N.J., from left, Sharon Roher, and her brother Norman Stanton, display a jar and letter on Aug. 16. The jar was found by Stanton on the property of Roher while cleaning up in the wake of Hurricane Sandy - nearly 50 years after it was tossed into the ocean. / Peter Ackerman, Asbury Park Press

by Kristi Funderburk, Asbury Park (N.J.) Press

by Kristi Funderburk, Asbury Park (N.J.) Press

SEASIDE HEIGHTS, N.J. -- Fifty years ago, a 12-year-old boy named Dennis Komsa wrote a note, sealed it in a glass jar, and cast it into the Atlantic Ocean while he was on vacation with his family in New Jersey.

The jar was long forgotten. That is, until Superstorm Sandy found it.

About a week after Sandy hit the Jersey Shore last fall, Norman Stanton was wading through storm debris outside his sister Sharon Roher's Seaside Heights home when he noticed a glass jar that sat away from the other trash.

"It looked like it was meant to be found," Stanton, 53, of Chalfont, Pa., told the Asbury Park Press.

The jar had been washed onto Roher's driveway, about two-tenths of a mile from the where Komsa had cast it in 1963.

The note inside was written on Saturday, Aug. 16, 1963. Inked neatly in blue, all-capitalized letters, it read:

"To whom it may concern, Please fill out the following questions and mail. This is a scientific experiment by Dennis Komsa, age 12."

It included his Paterson, N.J., address and noted that a nickel was enclosed to buy the stamp needed to reply.

Here's what Komsa wanted to know:

-- Where was the jar found?

-- When was it found?

-- How was it found?

-- "Anything else which might help me?"

Komsa, now 61 and living in Hillsborough, was a little surprised to learn his 1963 experiment had been recovered.

"Things happen for a reason," he said. "I guess it's good it came to shore. It shows anything is possible."

On Saturday, Komsa is expected to meet the people who found the jar at a luncheon in honor of Seaside Heights' 100th birthday.

Arthur Fierro, president of the Property Owners Association in Seaside Heights, found Komsa and invited him as a guest to meet Roher and Stanton.

Fierro, 73, said the area would have been hit by major storms and hurricanes the September after Komsa cast the jar into the sea, and he guesses it was buried in the sand until Sandy dug it up.

"It's great that somebody from that period is coming back to visit us to recover something he did with his father on vacation," Fierro said.

He plans to return the items to Komsa, who said he is looking forward to having back a piece of his childhood.

"My father and I used to do stuff like that all the time," Komsa said.

Komsa said he called to see if his jar had broken any Guinness World Records, but learned it would have had to stay buried for nearly another half century. A bottle found in 2012 by a fisherman from the United Kingdom had spent 97 years and 309 days at sea, according to the Guinness records website.